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A Marketing Trick. How Do Colours Work?

If you are in a prison – paint the walls pink. Violence and fights will decrease. Leave your baby in a room with yellow walls. Sooner or later you will hear its cry. Maybe you want to have less of an appetite? Try the “Blue wall” diet. A class room in red would make kids more aggressive. One in blue will most definitely lead to a drop in such kind of behavior. Volunteers in pink do gather more donations and green hospital hallways do calm us down. McDonalds is another excellent example.

They have based their whole design concept on two colours that call to action the most. Even our perception of time can be influenced. If you move empty boxes all day long, you will feel it as if it was torture. In order to avoid that, red boxes are painted in light green. And there you have it! Empty boxes do start to feel lighter. Food salesmen use more dark packings these days. That’s how they trick us into thinking there is more food on the inside. Inventory clerks in London often boost the contrast of pictures they take. Take a look at your last check-in report. You will never see an inventory clerk dressed in red.

How do colours work?

Do not mix this phenomenon with what fashion designer’s say. Some say dark clothes have a weight loss effect. You could hide your belly that way, but it is to be simply an illusion. The colour of black blurs our perception of all shades and makes figure outlines smoother. This way if you have an area you do not want people to focus on – give it a darker colour.

If you plan right, you could influence the attention drawn to you. A darker object stands out less in public and it is less likely to get noticed. People that wear white do look more muscular. This is a result that stronger contrast can have. If you use white, you are more likely to call your audience to action. This illusion of the black colour that makes us look fat is called fictitious weight. It is up to you to find the perfect colour to fit the way you want to feel.

The American journal of psychology did conduct a research showing how can colours manipulate. Eight boxes of the same size but different colours were given to random volunteers. Participants had to assort the boxes by weight. Here is what the results have shown:

The white box got the average 3.1

The yellow one had 3.5,

Green did 4.1,

Blue 4,7,

Violet 4.8,

Red 4.9

Black 5.8

Appearances can be deceiving

Colours can even affect our perception of taste. Some time back, Berni Corp. experts changed the colour of their sugar free Dr. Pepper drink to beige. There was no change in the recipe, but consumers felt like there was. It did taste closer to the original they say. Despise the fact there was none changed on the inside, the new colour did affect the perception of clients on a psychological level.

Darker orange drinks trend to have a better taste, consumers say as well. Colours can cause confusion, especially if they are associated with a specific brand. Coca-cola “owns” the red colour. When Berni Corp. changed the colour of its Canada dry drink from red to green, sales rose with 25%. Red caused consumers to associate the drink with Coca-Cola.

Advertisement agencies are more than familiar with the secret power of colours. Our advice for you is to choose wisely from now on.

In 1969 Berlin & Key conducted a research upon 21 languages. Results show that in all 21 languages colours are present in the following combinations:

Here’s a simple tip

There is one trick that does not require any expert knowledge regarding colours and their marketing superpowers. It has been proved countless times over the past couple of years. Use the marketing power of white packaging. Instead of using all the space you have, center your add and leave the rest blank. Poffenberger and Strong did a series of experiments on the topic.

They proved that centered ads outlined by white get more attention than those that use all their space. You should not use less than 40% for text. The studies say, that if you leave more than 60% in white, the costs will not be worth it. The most efficient ads does use a white box, which is no more than 20% of the space available.

Now you should have a better idea of how and what can colours do.

Use this knowledge wisely!

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